Preliminary Acting Course

The Guildhall School’s Preliminary Acting Course aims to offer a broad basis upon which to begin further actor training. Students from the Preliminary Acting Course have gone on to take up places on three year programmes at Guildhall, RADA, LAMDA, Bristol Old Vic, RWCMD and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

As with the School’s three-year BA and MA Acting programmes, we place great importance upon the ensemble. Students are encouraged to practice and promote trust, respect and generosity of spirit; they should be prepared to fail in order to improve, accept constructive criticism and use it to grow further.

The course provides grounding in essential skills, including how to read a play and how to apply background research to the acting process. As an extension of this, the group works intensively with a director to explore the material. They also undertake rehearsal projects on Shakespeare and a contemporary play – investigating the texts through group exercises, improvisation and scene work; the aim is to work towards truthful acting in Shakespeare and modern drama.

Basic Voice and Movement craft training runs alongside this work, laying the foundation of healthy and effective methods of approach to acting training, to heighten awareness of the importance of the balance of technical support needed for artistic creation and authenticity in acting. In addition, Audition Technique helps students gain confidence and integrity in their preparations for further auditions.

Tutors

The course is taught by Guildhall teachers and associate directors who have extensive experience of the BA (Hons) and MA Acting programmes, some of whom are core staff members.

Entry to the course

Places on the Preliminary Acting Course are available via audition. Auditions take place over the course of a day with group workshops in the morning and an individual audition in the afternoon.

Auditions take place on the following dates:

Saturday 13th April 2019

Sunday 14th April 2019

Sunday 16th June 2019

Please note that successful selection and completion of the Preliminary Acting Course will not influence any future audition for the three-year programme.

Course Fees

Course fees are £4850. A course fee instalment plan is available. This course has two scholarship places per cohort for students who fit certain criteria. Scholarships are for 2019/20 will be allocated through the School’s widening participation partners.

Dates

Students undertake an intensive 12 week full-time course (approximately 9:30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) with a high number of contact hours. We run two separate occurrences of the course and applicants are able to indicate any preferences in their application. The course dates for the next academic session are:

Option 1 - Autumn: Tuesday 17 September to Friday 6 December 2019

Option 2 - Spring: Tuesday 7 January to Friday 27 March 2020

Accommodation

The Halls of Residence are not available to Preliminary Acting Course students; however the School can provide a list of private accommodation to successful applicants.

Auditioning for the Preliminary Acting Course

Students from a wide range of ages and backgrounds are selected on merit by audition. It is not necessary to have any previous acting experience.

You should be at least 18 years old when you begin your training. There is no upper age limit.

We welcome applications from international applicants. You must be completely fluent in the English Language (the equivalent of a minimum IELTS score of 7.5). Current and recent overseas students have come from Argentina, Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Eire, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

We consider diversity to be an enriching and vital part of theatre-making. We welcome applications from individuals with disabilities and encourage them to disclose relevant information regarding any disability when completing their application form, to enable us to provide additional support during the audition process. Read more about the disability support we offer to applicants.

Please note: All auditions are performed in person at the School; we DO NOT accept recordings or arrange Skype auditions.

Notification of audition dates are sent by email. Please be aware that occasionally email notifications can be diverted to junk mail folders.